Hollywood is no stranger to suicide. Thousands came to the
new “Film Capital of the World” in the early 1900’s, hoping to make it
big in the moving picture business. When failure came instead of success, many
of them chose not to go on, to continue dreaming of wealth and celebrity that
would never come. Unfortunately, many of these failed actors and would-be
starlets found the fame in death they never achieved in life.

One such actress was Peg Entwhistle, who set a new standard
for suicide in Hollywood. Not only would she use a Hollywood landmark as a
novel way for ending her life, but she would also become a symbol of Hollywood
failure and tragedy. And according to some Peg Entwhistle is no mere symbol.
She maintains a powerful presence in the vicinity of the Hollywood sign... a
presence which is still being felt today.

So, here’s another dark chapter in Hollywood’s
Haunted History....

The Hollywood sign is perhaps the most famous sign in the
world. Resting on Mount Lee in Griffith Park, it looms over the city of
Hollywood as a constant reminder of the past. The original sign was built in
1923 as a publicity ploy to encourage the sales of homes in the Hollywoodland
subdivision, which was located along Beachwood Canyon. Hollywood was in its
infancy in those days and was being deluged with people from the east. They
came looking for the fabled orange groves and sunshine and when they got here,
they needed a place to live. Promoter Mack Sennett wanted the Hollywoodland
subdivision to provide that place but like everything else in Tinseltown, the
sign was never meant to last. The cheap facade was only designed to last for a
year and a half.

It cost $21,000 to build and each of the letters were 30
feet wide and 50 feet high. The entire name was studded with low wattage light
bulbs and could be seen for miles. In time, the sign would fall into disrepair
and the light bulbs would all burn out, be broken, or stolen by vandals.
Maintenance of the sign was discontinued in 1939. Then, late in 1944, the H.
Sherman Company, who became the developers of the old Hollywoodland housing
district, quit claimed to the city of Los Angeles about 455 acres of land
adjoining Griffith Park. This property included the Hollywoodland sign.

The weather beaten sign was untouched for the next five
years, falling further into ruin. Then, in 1949, the Hollywood Chamber of
Commerce made plans to repair and rebuild the sign. They also removed “land”
from the line of letters so that it merely read “Hollywood”. The cost to
renovate the sign was around $4,000 but the light bulbs were not replaced. In
spite of the work that was done, the sign continued to deteriorate (some would
say much like Hollywood itself) until the late 1970’s, when a fund-raising
campaign was begun to replace the letters. Donors were asked to contribute
$27,700 each to buy a replacement letter.

In August 1978, the Pacific Outdoor Advertising Company,
along with Hughes Helicopters and the Heath Sign Company, demolished the
remains of the original sign and installed new, all-steel letters in its
place. The sign now stretches 450 feet along the side of Mount Lee and remains
50 feet tall.

Like the Chinese Theater, whether it be called Graumann’s
or Mann’s, the Hollywood sign is one of the definitive symbols of Hollywood
and perhaps the film industry itself. For those who are film buffs, no journey
to southern California can be complete without a trip to view the sign....
there is nothing quite like it in the world.

The Hollywood sign got its first taste of death on a dark
night in September 1932. It was on this night that Lillian Millicent “Peg”
Entwhistle climbed up the slopes of Mount Lee with the glowing sign as her
final destination. When she arrived, she scaled the heights of the giant
letter “H”... and jumped. Her body plunged down the side of the hill and
broke on the ground below. As she had planned, the fall had killed her,
leaving her body battered and bloody on the unforgiving earth. Peg Entwhistle,
Hollywood actress, was only 24 years old.

Peg Entwhistle... Her death set a new standard for suicide in
Hollywood

Peg had been born in
London, England in 1908. She grew up in an acting family, although
little is known about her early life, save for the fact that her
mother died when Peg was quite young. She left Peg’s father to raise
a daughter and her two brothers, Robert and Milton, alone. A short
time later, Peg’s father packed up and moved the family to New York
where he started working in local theater. Unfortunately, tragedy
struck again and Peg’s father was run over by a truck on Park
Avenue, ending his life. Robert and Milton were then sent to Los
Angeles to live with Harold Entwhistle, their uncle, and Peg turned to
the stage for solace.

She made her acting debut in Hamlet when she was
just 17 years old. To everyone’s surprise, she quickly became a bonafide
star, loved by audiences, critics and directors alike. There was no question
about it, Peg was a knock-out and possessed a gentle quality which won the
hearts of just about everyone she ever worked with. She quickly became a
Broadway star and a member of the New York Theater Guild.

While working on Broadway, Peg met a fellow actor named
Robert Keith. He was also a popular star and despite his being 10 years Peg’s
senior, the two soon fell in love and got married. But the marriage soured
quickly. During a visit to her mother-in-law’s house, Peg noticed a
photograph of a young boy on the mantel. She asked who he was and was informed
that he was Robert’s son from his first marriage... something that he had
kept hidden from her. Incidentally, that surprise step-son was future actor
Brian Keith, star of the television show Family Affair.

Just weeks later, during a dinner party at their home, a
police officer came to the door and demanded nearly $1000 in back child
support that Robert owed. Peg got the money together, but when she asked
Robert about it, he became violent. The bad debts, lies and fights ended the
marriage and they were soon divorced.

Peg went back to the Broadway stage, but this part of her
life was also coming to an end. The Great Depression had arrived and the
majority of the public could no longer afford the expensive theater tickets.
Thanks to this, Peg’s last seven New York plays bombed. But all wasn’t
lost. While Broadway may have been suffering, Hollywood was still in its boom
era. During Peg’s initial fame in New York, Hollywood was making the
transition from silent films to talkies. Unfortunately, many of the silent
film stars were just not cut out for talking roles and Hollywood producers
looked to the actors of the New York stage to fill the acting rosters. Many
other stage actors were making it big in Hollywood, so Peg packed up and took
the train to California, sure that greater fame and fortune waited for her on
the west coast.

When she arrived, Peg moved into a Beachwood Canyon
bungalow with her brothers and Uncle Harold. The house was located in the
Hollywoodland subdivision, just under the towering sign where Peg would later
take her life.

Not long after she arrived in Hollywood, found work in
small theater. The first production she did was a play called Mad Hopes,
starring Billie Burke, who would go on to play Glenda the good witch in The
Wizard of Oz. Also in the show was another Hollywood newcomer named
Humphrey Bogart. The play opened to decent reviews, but only lasted a week and
a half. When the curtain fell on Mad Hopes, Peg saw it as another
personal failure. She began to wonder if her New York jinx had followed her to
Tinseltown. However, she would go on to appear with Billie Burke in a few more
small productions although Bogart returned to New York. His days of fame and
fortune were still to come.

Thanks to her good looks and her popularity on Broadway,
Peg landed a short-term contract with RKO Studios and within weeks of her
arrival, landed a small part in the film Thirteen Women. She knew that
even though it was a small part, it would lead to other offers. It was only
her first movie role, she realized.

Little did she know that it would turn out to be her last.

During filming, Peg discovered the part was actually a
supporting role, but a good one. Her hopes began to rise. The movie was
released, only to be savaged by the critics. RKO quickly shelved it. It was
released quietly a short time later but substantial cuts had been made to the
73 minute running time. Peg’s part, despite her good showing, had been
reduced to little more than a cameo appearance.

Once more, she was bitterly disappointed, but vowed to not
let it get to her. She began answering ads for small parts and going to
auditions and casting calls. However, Peg soon found that she was just another
pretty face in a town filled with beautiful women. All of them had come to
Hollywood for the same reason, to make it into show business.

And things went from bad to worse. Her option with RKO ran
out and they declined to renew it. She was cut loose and on her own, now
unable to even find work in small theater. Soon, promises of future work
quickly vanished. As her career feel apart, her new friends made themselves
scarce. No one can afford to be seen with a nobody in Hollywood! Peg
Entwhistle, the gorgeous young woman who had shot to fame on Broadway, had now
fallen to the bottom of the Hollywood barrel. She became even more depressed
when she was unable to even scrape together train fare to go back to New York.
She would never act again.

So, on that terrible night in September 1932, Peg announced
to her Uncle Harold that she was going to take a walk. She was last seen alive
heading down Beachwood Canyon toward Mount Lee. Apparently, Peg scratched her
way up the slope to the Hollywood sign where she took off her coat and folded
it neatly. She placed it, along with her purse, at the base of the maintenance
ladder which led up the letter “H”. She climbed to the top and then
plunged to her death.

The next day, a woman hiker in Griffith Park discovered the
purse and coat near the ladder. She opened the purse and discovered a suicide
note inside. It read simply “ I am afraid I am a coward. I am sorry for
everything. If I had done this a long time ago it would have saved a lot of
pain..... P.E.” The hiker replaced the note and then, in the early
morning hours, placed the purse and coat on the doorstep of the Hollywood
police station. Two days later, authorities discovered the body of Peg
Entwhistle in the brush at the bottom of Mount Lee.

Unsure of her identity, the police ran a description of the
woman, along with the contents of the suicide note, in the newspaper. They
were quickly contacted by Uncle Harold, who had been frantically searching for
his niece sent she had left for her walk several evenings before. He feared
the worst when he saw the initials attached to the end of the note. Not long
after, he identified the body as that of Peg Entwhistle.

And here’s where the ultimate irony comes in....

Two days later, Uncle Harold was sifting through the
afternoon mail and he discovered a letter that had been mailed to Peg the day
before she jumped to her death. The letter was from the Beverly Hills
Playhouse and it had been written to offer Peg the lead role in their next
production.

But wait, it gets even better... the part was that of a
beautiful young woman who commits suicide in the final act of the play! Pretty
spooky, isn’t it?

But death was not the last act for Peg Entwhistle.

In the years following her suicide, hikers and park rangers
in Griffith Park have reported some pretty strange happening in the vicinity
of the Hollywood sign. Many have reported sightings of a woman dressed in 1930’s
era clothing who abruptly vanishes when approached. She has been described as
a very attractive, blond woman, who seems very sad. Could this be Peg’s
ghost, still making her presence known? Could she also be linked to the
pungent smell of gardenia perfume which has been known to overwhelm
sight-seers in the park? Perhaps it is, as the gardenia scent was known to be
Peg’s trademark perfume.

In 1990, a North Hollywood man and his girlfriend were
walking on a Beachwood Canyon trail near the Hollywood sign with their dog
when the animal suddenly began to act very strange. Instead of running around
on the trail and through the brush as he normally did, he began to whine and
hang back near the couple. They had never seen him act that way before and
could find no cause until they spotted a lady walking nearby. One thing they
noticed about her was that she was wearing clothing from the 1930’s.
However, thinking that you could see anything in Hollywood, they didn’t
pay much attention.

The lady however, seemed to be walking in a daze. Thinking
that perhaps she was drunk or on drugs, they started to steer clear of her
when she suddenly just faded away before their eyes. At that time, they had no
idea who Peg Entwhistle was, nor that she had committed suicide nearby, or
even that her ghost reportedly haunted the area. Imagine their surprise when
they found out!

Another eyewitness to this haunting was a Griffith park
ranger named John Arbogast. In an interview, he revealed his own encounters
with the ghost of Peg Entwhistle. He stated that she normally made her
presence known very late at night, especially when it was foggy, and always in
the vicinity of the Hollywood sign. He also claimed to have encountered the
scent of gardenias in the area as well.

“I have smelled it several times,” he said, “and
always when any flowers around have been closed because of cold weather. I don’t
think I have ever smelled it in the summer time.”

Arbogast’s duties as a ranger often involved the
Hollywood sign itself. He explained that in recent years, alarms systems have
been installed near the sign to keep people away from it. There is always a
danger of vandals... and of course, suicides who want to go out the same way
that Peg did. The alarm systems incorporate the use of motion detectors and
lights to keep intruders away.

Arbogast recalled a number of times when the alarm system
stated that someone was close to the sign, even though a check by the ranger
revealed no one was there. “There have been times when I have been at the
sign,” he said, “and the motion detectors say that someone is standing
five feet away from me... only there’s nobody there.”

So, what could have made Peg Entwhistle choose to end her
life in such a dramatic and violent way? No one knows, but we have to wonder.
The Hollywood slogan states that the sign exists as a symbol of hope, so that
those who answer the siren call of Hollywood will know that anything in the
city is possible. But did Peg glimpse that sign one evening, after spending
the day going from one pointless casting call to another, and see it not as a
symbol of hope, but one of despair? Did she feel that sign mocking her,
laughing that so many others had made it in the movies... so why couldn’t
she?

Did the glowing lights of the sign remind her of why she
had come to Hollywood, chasing the bright lights she would never catch up to?
Or perhaps she just wanted to go out in a way that people would remember?

If this was the case, she was right. Who may have ever
heard of Peg Entwhistle if not for the fact that she took that fatal plunge
from the very symbol of Hollywood itself? It is certain that Peg gained much
more fame in death than she ever gained in life. To young actors and would-be
stars, Peg has become a sort of a patron saint to failed actors in Hollywood.

Perhaps this isn’t a good thing though.

Because if all of the failed actors in Hollywood suddenly
decided to follow the lead of Peg Entwhistle and commit suicide... who would
be left to wait on the tables in Hollywood restaurants?